Journalist Fired For Anti-Obama Column

Albert Camus said: “A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.”

One of the base principles upon which our country was founded was freedom: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. Freedom, in its most ideal form, sustains our society on multiple levels. Specifically, freedom of the press turns stone into glass, so that we can live in a more open and transparent society. The endangerment of any freedom is a step toward tyranny, but the endangerment of press freedom is the first step. And once one step is taken, the object in motion will continue to move forward.

To me, freedom of the press means that journalists should pursue the truth at any cost, regardless of their own political orientation. Political journalists should be allowed—by the government, but also by their publishers—to write pieces that peel back the layers of Washington, revealing the muscles and organs that allow our government to function. If there is a sickness inside the body of our country, it is the journalists duty to show it to the world.

Unfortunately, many mainstream media publications are religiously Leftist, only allowing pieces that line up with their agendas. If a journalists steps outside the bounds of the Liberal agenda, they are locked away. Just such a thing is happening right now.

The Times Free Press claims that Johnson was fired because he violated the Times’ headline writing policy.

I read the article, and found nothing offensive in its content. If you’d like to read it for yourself, here it is.

So, what do we have here? We have a journalist/op-ed columnist who wrote a scathing article against the President, and was fired. We have a publication that claims he was fired because he violated headline writing policy. Something doesn’t smell right. The fact that Drew Johnson was fired so soon after penning his negative Obama piece, and the rather ridiculous reason given to explain his termination, leads me to think Johnson was fired because he went against the agenda.

What does that mean for us? It means we are living in a nation where freedom of the press is being beaten to death, slowly but surely. This is obvious to those who have even the weakest observational senses, but it always bears reminding.

The press is supposed to be our friend. What happens when it turns against us? We become the enemy. Freedom of the press is a form of freedom of speech. With press freedom slowly melting away, what is next on the agenda? What will go first: freedom of religion, assembly, or speech? Once one domino has been knocked down, the others must fall as well.